Replacing a BT (GPO) Block Terminal

[Ant Harris]

All,

A fairly lengthy explanation, so please bear with me :-)

I've recently had some building work done in my hall which necessitated me to move my phone block terminal (referring to

it looks like a GPO BT20/4).

Anyway, there was a socket immediately following the block terminal which I have discarded as it was is a bad state. I've subsequently wired up my extensions to the junction box, using standard (slave?) phone sockets.

I don't know much about phone wiring, but it's just come to my attention that this may have been a master socket, however my phone still works - would this work if there was no termination resistor & capacitor?

I'd like to replace the block terminal as the contacts are corroded and the box is really shabby, what could I replace this with (I don't need a socket there)? The box has 3 wires going in - one is my extension, one is twin bell wire and the other is 3 core which I think goes to some old sockets upstairs.

I've read that the wiring up to the master socket belongs to BT, but have I already violated this by discarding the socket?

Thanks in advance,

Ant Harris

[Colin Wilson]

Technically it is their equipment and they could take the hump, but I believe in practice they often just charge you maybe £20 to "normalise" it with the proper master box.

[Sparks]

BT own the cable that comes into your house, up to and including the master socket

If the master socket is a NTE5 socket, as far as I am aware you are allowed to remove the lower half of the face plate to connect your extensions to.

If you have removed the master socket, the phones will still work, except one key point They may not ring! Older phones are more likely not to ring, where newer ones sometimes will. The master socket filters out the ring, and feeds it down another wire.

A master socket needs to be reinstalled where the line enters the building BT should do this, but will probably charge you. However, it is not impossible to do it your self!

There should be two wires entering your property (Probably the twin bell wire)

You need to put a master socket here, connect these two wires to the A and B terminals on a NTE5 socket (The lower half of the face plate comes away separately to the upper part on these) The A and B terminals are in the second part of the face plate.

Then you need three cores running to all your other sockets (pins 2,3 and 5 both ends) (If you are using a master socket that doesn't have A and B, connect the two incoming wires to pins 2 and 5)

There is some more info here

Sparks...

[Sam Albrow]

probably not....or at least it shouldn't but may on some phones. Coming into your house (before the master) there are 2 wires, after the master socket there are 3 (one is the ringer). The master socket has a capacitor in it and a PSTN master (but not PBX Masters) have lighting protectors in them (a good idea if you don't want your phones zapped)

Do you need them all - if the line coming in is 3 wires (as opposed to 2) then its beyond the master so just join them together. If not just replace with a master socket. I have a feeling i've lost you though and this isn't the case.

Yes, you have really but as long as you do a proffessional job on it then it doesn't really matter. Its just a clause to stop people doing really stupid things because they think they know what they are doing, I would say stop 'DIY'ers' fiddling.

[Brian {Hamilton Kelly]

Whilst using tinyurl is justifiable where the URL in question is likely of ephemeral interest (and especially if it's huge), for a post like this that could usefully be found by someone DejaGoogling years hence, it's better to provide the real URL, no matter how convoluted that might be.

Remember that all these "make a short URL" services only work for a few weeks, not in perpetuity. (Or perhaps you didn't know that?)

Besides, Peter's original URL is hardly overtaxing; it even fits on one line:

[Sparks]

Point taken, It just looked long in the address bar!

However tinyurl's addresses do not expire...ever!

(From their home page) "Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires."

Sparks...

[David Micklem]

I'd be more worried that they'll go belly up/be taken over/switch to a subscription model. Of course the target URL stands a good chance of expiring too, but it usually provides at least a clue as to where to look for the up-to-date/moved information.

Because URL's are so ephemeral, I wish people would summarise what information is at the URL when posting "the answer is at

" messages. In a couple of years the answer quite probably WON'T be there!

David

[Mike CJ]

BTW you can buy an NTE5 linebox from RS Components. Mike.

[Paul]

You just need one of these NTE5's correctly wired into your house wiring to replace the bits you have removed. You'll then be responsible for the wiring from that point forwards into your house. No BT engineer is likely to complain so long as the installation is done correctly. The box should even come with connection instructions if its the same make as the BT ones (which i think it is)

Paul

[Paul]

Sorry didn't read the whole thread before I posted.The URL I was referring to was

Paul

[Brian {Hamilton Kelly]

Which doesn't work; neither does the

which you posted earlier.

The reason for this failure is that RS maintain separate sessions for each person connecting, and these sessions time-out (to say nothing of being meant to be unique to you, at that time).

Anyone wanting these details will probably have to go to the RS site

and use the search facility to look for the product number: presumably that is the 2648064 in the URL above?

One final comment; many browsers are confused by URLs which span multiple lines (which is, of course, why posters like services such as tinyurl). The confusion arises because the blank lines are seen as being the same sort of delimiting white space as that which precedes and follows the entire URL. The RFCs that define the syntax for URLs suggest using something other than white-space to delimit the URL (and the best suggestion is matching diamond brackets <>).

So if you'd quoted your URL (had it not been broken through being tied to a particular session) in the form:

BV_SessionID=@@@@2038447258.1067545204@@@@&BV_Engi neID=cccdadcjkdjfkjdcfngcfkmdgkldfhn.0&cacheID=uki e&3244998011=3244998011&stockNo=2648064>

then _some_ browsers would not have been confused. (Some, I fear, would still be.)

[James Hart]

OE sees the original post as a valid URL but your version breaks it ( I guess do to line length. The version with the <> is broken as well. Makes no difference with RS though because of the session thing anyway.